Asian approach ?

Kirjoittanut bert Ti, 2007-06-26 07:09

The so called Male Chapter of AWARE has started to plan the WRC Campaign for 2007. Of course I'm attending the meetings where the campaign is supposed to be planned but as a foreigner I cannot and don't want to take very much practical responsibilities - I thought. But maybe I'll have to reconsider..

The first meeting was scheduled to 7 PM. I was there even before. At 7 came Braema, a very energetic person, but a woman - and we've thought of trying to keep the arrangements all male this year. Well, Braema is nice to talk to and that's what we had to do for an hour. At 8 PM came Khaali and at 8:15 Jeshua - and that was it.

I'd managed to initiate a small email discussion prior to the meeting, about the rcampaign and gender issues. There is no gender awareness whatsoever among men here. Gender equality is still 100% a women's matter - doesn't concern men. Like violence - doesn't concern men.

The campaign here is run (has been for a couple of years already) in oursourced project mode - with the project mgr from AWARE's Male Chapterv and all resources coming from some educational institution whose students are used for all practical work - this year the Republic Polytechnic.

Anyway, one major problem surfaced immediately - unwillingness on behalf of the person who assumed leadership to even talk about gendered violence - he wants to redefine the campaign to address dominance - and according to him women are at least as dominant as men - as the real problem. Sigh.

I'm fighting hard - if these local cowards cannot or dare not keep to the original goals for the WRC campaign I will demand it be skipped altogether, or renamed something else than WRC. Fortunately I feel I have the support of last year's manager plus that of AWARE.

I thought Finnish men were cowards - emotionally - but here the concept of emotional cowardice has assumed unparalleled levels. Sigh !